Should I continue with house purchase?

Girlunsure333 · 24 March 2020 at 11:17AM

Hello,

I really hope you can help with my predicament as there’s (understandably) not been much discussion re this so far.

I’m a first time buyer and am in the process of buying my first property. I’m about a week away from contracts being exchanged. I’m currently self isolating as being asthmatic and having beaten cancer three times I’m classed as vulnerable. I’m concerned about two things... finances and health.

Financially... I’m getting mixed advice, some people saying I should push ahead with the sale and get on the ladder... some people saying I should pull out. They’ve told me we will go into a recession and house prices will drop meaning I could go into negative equity if I continue. I’m concerned if I do pull out I’ll struggle to get a mortgage as I’m using my credit card more (to protect my cash incase of job worst case scenario) so will have bigger debts and I won’t be getting any commission so my three months pay will be a lot lower.

Health concerns... if it does go ahead I’m concerned about removals. How would that work with self isolating with people coming into my current house and new house, touching all my furniture. I can keep my distance but am worried about the risks.

Please help!

tommyedinburgh · 24 March 2020 at 11:23AM

I would personally continue with the purchase.
Get on the ladder, priorities paying the mortgage, bunker down, ride this out in your bought home and enjoy the good times when they return later this year.

bigmortgage · 24 March 2020 at 11:53AM

tommyedinburgh said:

I would personally continue with the purchase.
Get on the ladder, priorities paying the mortgage, bunker down, ride this out in your bought home and enjoy the good times when they return later this year in 2021/22.

muz3562 · 24 March 2020 at 1:08PM

I'm in a similar predicament and at the minute I'm planning on proceeding but with a delay for 3 weeks to hopefully see the end of these restrictions on non essential travel etc .

Of course the vendor might not accept this , might have financial difficulties of their own etc and if that means they pull out as disappointing as that is that's part and parcel of property buying .

Cvid96LH · 24 March 2020 at 1:25PM

We are proceeding with our house purchase though our solicitor said that exchange has to be on hold for 3 weeks due to COVID-19. Is anyone else having the same thing told to them? I would have thought this can be all done from home.

Helptobuypurchase · 24 March 2020 at 2:21PM

Cvid96LH said:

We are proceeding with our house purchase though our solicitor said that exchange has to be on hold for 3 weeks due to COVID-19. Is anyone else having the same thing told to them? I would have thought this can be all done from home.

My solicitor has said the same thing. We were ready to exchange today but have now been told that this won’t happen until the restrictions are lifted. Although they are saying 3 weeks if we look at other countries in lock down it will definitely be for significantly longer.

scoffs93 · 24 March 2020 at 3:55PM

We have told our estate agents to put our purchase on hold for at least three weeks whilst current situation stabilizes, they passed this onto sellers and their response was - 'we are not happy to put on hold, either we still continue or we will re-market the property'!!

jay213 · 24 March 2020 at 6:22PM

scoffs93 said:

We have told our estate agents to put our purchase on hold for at least three weeks whilst current situation stabilizes, they passed this onto sellers and their response was - 'we are not happy to put on hold, either we still continue or we will re-market the property'!!

They probably want to get out of there asap before the market starts tanking, hence their high pressure sales technique. I think with this question in general house owners who respond would like people to continue as normal with purchases because at the end of the day they don't want to see their assets devalue either.

There is a looming recession if you're fine with that go ahead, but that price was in a good economy with historically high prices (London, but depends where you are) we are now entering a bad phase, but if you're going to be there for the long term and don't mind weathering the storm and think your jobs are safe you might as well go ahead.